


So let it out and let it in

by justira



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas/Dean if you tilt your head like a bird, Gen, Hey Jude, Pre-Slash, Sam Ships It, Season/Series 06, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justira/pseuds/justira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Castiel could no longer conceive of an end to himself that did not have Dean at its beginning. He remade Dean, and Dean unmakes him. And so here he is, at Dean's beginning.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>--</p><p>Castiel goes to 1979 to get something for Sam and Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So let it out and let it in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eternalbreath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalbreath/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Where the Sea and City Meet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/145270) by [RC_McLachlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan). 



> Renay demanded fic for [this photoset](http://ssjdebusk.tumblr.com/post/67247446686/cityoftimelordsandhunters-au-cas-goes-back-in). I showed her the excellent [Where the Sea and City Meet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/145270) as the closest I knew of, which she enjoyed so much that she wanted a Cas version.
> 
> This is neither, but draws inspiration from both. Please do check out that fic; I credit it entirely for half the idea behind this one. The other half belongs to the photoset. Much gratitude goes to sanders for coaxing me through the neuroses accompanying posting my first not-exchange/pinch-hit fic in years. All the blame, though, goes to Renay.
> 
> [Also on tumblr](http://justira.tumblr.com/post/67720423521/ssjdebusk-cityoftimelordsandhunters-au-cas).

  
    
**So let it out and let it in**  
    
___

   
 

"Jay Bird Family Special," the waitress announces, clear and cheery above the lunchtime clinks and conversation buzzing through the diner. She tips Mary a wink. Mary grins back as Heather sets the giant platter in front of her, gently intercepting baby Dean's hand going straight for the steak. "Your man running late?"

"Course not!" John pops up behind Heather. He's breathless under a thin sheen of sweat, his face all smiles and engine grease, and Mary could not want to touch that handsome curve of jaw more.

Instead, she puts a mild growl of threat in her voice, not even trying to cover the laughter crowding up alongside it. "If you think you're getting those paws anywhere near my food or my son—"

"Hey, I washed up!" He dodges the departing Heather and slides in beside Mary, not in the least intimidated, before spreading wide his clean hands. The cheerful waggle of pink-scrubbed fingers turns into a 'gimme' grasping towards her and Dean.

Mary surreptitiously tucks Dean a little tighter into her lap as she leans over, licking her lips and making her voice low and rough. "Why Mister Winchester, did you want something?" John's eyes spark. "I got everything I want right here," he breathes. Mary tries very hard not to laugh as she leans in, letting her exhale ghost across his lips. "Yeah? Cause you look like you've got—" she parts her mouth, brings a hand up to thumb at his lower lip "—a little something—" he leans in, head tilting and eyes sliding shut "— _extra_." And she shoves him away by his chin, snickering at his startled-wide eyes.

"You are _too_ easy."

"Only cause you play dirty." He wipes at his face, frowns at the black smear now on his hand.

"Oh, you haven't _seen_ 'dirty'," she purrs, and then breaks on a laugh. "But _I'm_ seeing dirty right now. Get outta here." She stretches her syllables wide around her grin, pushing aside the flirting with an obnoxious accent as she drawls, "Go wash yer face, ya hooligan."

"Ya got it, toots," he drawls right back. She wrinkles her nose at that, but then again, she started it.

"Don't you listen to that kind of language, little man," she tells Dean. "You're going to show ladies _respect_ when you grow up." Dean blinks up at her and reaches for the steak again.

Mary gives an unladylike snort. Fending off Dean's attempts, she relaxes back against the booth seat, absorbing the sunny atmosphere at Jay's. Outside, Lawrence bustles with the lunchtime crowd in a spill of bright summer colors, shorts and bared arms, dotted here and there with a stodgy older lady stubbornly wearing what looks like the entire afghan off her couch, a young business type who seems to have expected rain to match his tan trench, a middle-aged priest sweating in his black suit and tugging at the white slip at his collar.

"So do I pass inspection this time?" John slides in beside her again.

"Barely. Come on, your eggs are getting cold."

He ignores the threat of congealed yolks and reaches for her and Dean again. She gives in this time, kisses him sweet and just a little dirty. It leaves John just a little breathless. He takes Dean out of her arms and holds him close, and looks downright dazed with happiness, the sunshine slipping across his work-rough hands and cheap scruffy shirt, and Mary's heart stutters.

After a moment, John frees a hand to grab at the coffee, apparently recovered from the dangerously emotional detour by the time he's swallowed down half the cup. "You staying out or heading back home after this?" He applies himself to the steak, and Mary keeps a suspicious eye on the Winchester men to make sure John doesn't sneak Dean any.

"Not sure. Are you staying late at the shop? Budge over." She elbows him away from the hash browns.

John wisely yields the disputed territory. "Big restoration job came in today." He whistles, though the steak grease ruins it a little. "You should see her, she's—" he looks out the window, gaze longing, and she follows it, not that she could see the new arrival from here — the shop's tucked a few streets back. "She's—" John's starting again, and Mary's turning back to him as she catches a smear of tan out of the corner of her eye again— "She's not as beautiful as you," John finishes, gaze shifting from the window to her face, and the faint echo of disquiet fades under the bloom of warmth inside her.

"I can stand a little competition, you know," Mary says softly. She doesn't glance back at the window.

"I'll be home on time," he insists.

"We need the money." She sighs, picking at the food.

"I need _you_ ," he returns. It's so unselfconscious and nakedly sincere, his eyes so serious. Dean follows the earnest line of his father's attention, turns to look at her too. It clogs her throat, how much they need her— _want_ her, in a way completely different from the people she used to save. John and Dean save her, every minute of every day. She fought for this. She'll always fight for this.

"Need you too," she breathes, and kisses the breath out of him too, kisses Dean's forehead and touches their hair.

She takes Dean back, prods John into eating something besides meat, and doesn't let him catch her keeping an eye on the window as she pretends to fight him over the last cut of steak. Mary kicks away the grim feeling seeding inside her at another flash of tan coat. _Go away, you. I'll deal with you later_.

When John's distracted by covering the check, she makes her move. "John, could you take Dean home before you get back to the shop? I just remembered, we're running out of formula. Take the car, I'll hop a bus, run by the store and be right home before you have to go back, okay?"

"Of course, babe," John grins up at her as she passes Dean over. She smiles back, helpless, and kisses him again. Outside the diner, the sun cuts everything into sharp shadows as Mary turns toward the store.

She waves to Mrs. Holbrook across the street. Stops for a quick hello with Rose from down the street, her own son propped on her hip. Once she's out of sight of the Jay Bird's windows, she waits for John to come out with Dean, get in the car and leave. She waits a few moments, the street empty of other cars before she turns, doubles back, turns again. _Yes. There_. She ducks into an alley and presses herself against the wall, waiting. As soon as a tan trenchcoat floats into view, Mary lunges. She grabs thin air— damn, the guy moves _fast_ , and it can't be natural. _Dammit, dammit_. She feels it behind her, spins, punches— _Fuck_. Her knuckles crack against cheekbones like solid steel. She rolls with the half-aborted momentum, whips her other hand around, grabs the flask of holy water that hasn't left her side since 1973, flips it open and flings it in the thing's face.

Nothing.

She spends a stupid moment staring.  A drop slips from his chin and plops to the ground between them. Under soaked eyelashes, the thing's eyes are blue and wide and— surprised? _Sorry_?

"Mary, I apologize for frightening you." He reaches a hand out for hers, the one she's cradling to her chest. The one she broke against his face. She flinches back.

"What the hell are you?" she breathes, thick through her teeth.

"I'm an angel of the Lord."

Her heart stutters for the second time in an hour. Long-learned fighting reflexes trip over the prayers caught in her throat. He reaches for her again, slower this time, and Mary's suspended between the two oldest disciplines of her life long enough that his hand touches hers, and a warm light glows, and then there is no pain.

"My name is Castiel." His voice is rough and low. "May I speak to you? Please."

 

——-

 

John Winchester makes a quick exit after a slow kiss, Dean cradled between them for a moment under the arch of John's bowed head and Mary's upturned chin. Castiel watches, invisible.

Mary holds Dean and stares unseeing at the door for a few moments. The rumble of the Impala fades into the distance.

"Okay," she says finally. "Okay. Come on, Castiel."

Castiel folds himself into her sight. When she turns to him, her smile reminds Castiel so much of Sam's when they had first met. Full of faith. There's so little of that left to him, now. Once, Dean's faith had grown as Sam's had guttered, though both had at least held fast to the bedrock of _family_. Now even that is shaken, that trust broken, and Castiel stands in the ruins he made of them, even if the Winchesters don't know it. But before him now stands Mary with a Dean unburdened by Castiel's troubles, both of them happy and whole, and Mary so welcoming once he had explained what he was, his purpose.

He meets her eyes. "Thank you, Mary."

"I always told Dean angels were watching over him," she says, rocking the bundle in her arms slightly. Jimmy's heart stutters inside Castiel. Baby Dean coos.

"Yes," Cas agrees. He thinks of Michael, Zachariah, Anna. "Always."

"You want to hold him?"

Castiel stares down at the tiny child. Dean stares back. Dean's eyes are an undecided shade, not the blue he was born with and not yet the green that will stare at Castiel next on September 18th almost three decades from now.

"Yes," Castiel answers. "Always."

Mary passes him over carefully, and Castiel's fingers fold under the blanket, under the barely-there scrap of weight and warmth.

"Hello, Dean," he says.

Castiel might be able to see the tiny unshaped flicker of Dean's soul, feel the echo of their bond in his Grace. But to baby Dean, he is only a strange rough voice and strange rough hands. Dean fusses.

"Shhhh," Castiel whispers. Mary bites her lip.

Dean's tiny fist waves through the air. He snuffles, uncertain.

It's nothing a healing touch can address; there is nothing wrong with Dean. Only Castiel's sudden presence in his life.

"Hey Jude," Castiel starts, soft, faltering, a hush of sound more than it is song. " _Hey, Jude... Don't make it bad..._ " Dean blinks up at him. Castiel layers a melody under the words, hesitant, and then gaining rhythm as Dean quiets. " _Take a sad song... And make it better..._ "

He looks up in time to see a smile bloom back across Mary's features, soul shining through her skin to Castiel's sight. "He remembers that?"

Castiel nods, shapes the lyrics with his lips, his throat awkward around the sounds. Dean kicks at his arm, apparently less than satisfied with his performance. Mary, though... Mary's smile is... a revelation. The thought blasphemy, once, to a Castiel long past — it is all beautiful to him now, and he impresses this image into his Grace, holds it, for Dean. For Dean.

She comes close enough to stroke Dean's hair, and sings, running steady and sure under his own attempt. " _Remember to let her into your heart..._ " Her voice, untrained and imperfect, is lovely in the way human things are, the way Dean is. Castiel's Dean. The Dean in his arms calms at it, and Mary backs away a little, singing still, letting Castiel hold her child.

Castiel has held Dean before, and holds him now for the first time, a different body but the same soul.

There is no dissonance in this, though perhaps something like a soft-edged sorrow; a quiet and shapeless thing that covers him like sleep did in the brief time when he had Fallen. Sleep had been difficult for him, but dreaming, easy, a sweet murmuring echo of grace — if not Grace — to it, in the way places and times blurred together and moved under Castiel's hand. He existed in all times, in all places, changeless and unending. In dreams, humans can be gods, seeing the deepest truths and building the deepest lies.

The depth of the lie was, perhaps, the third most valuable thing he'd learned. Angels changed, and angels ended. Even God did, or else Castiel would never have had to seek him, and break himself in doing so.

Second-most was free will.

And first... first was Dean. Dean would likely scoff at this ordering, but perhaps Sam wouldn't. The senseless poetics of choice would have found few sparks to strike inside Castiel if Dean had not flung him open and carved himself into the brittle foundations there. And from there Castiel had forged the chains of choice, and the many, many paths that would change him, and end him, again and again.

Castiel could no longer conceive of an end to himself that did not have Dean at its beginning. He remade Dean, and Dean unmakes him. And so here he is, at Dean's beginning.

"He's beautiful," Castiel murmurs.

Mary smiles at him. That, too, is beautiful.

"Mary," he whispers. "Mary, thank you for this."

The smile trickles off her face, melted by something too raw in his voice, his eyes — he can never control this vessel's eyes, master the baffling chain of translation between the sorrowed modulations in his Grace and the physiological responses pulled from this body. Mary's eyes track his, the softness in them replaced with a sharp concern— though not caution, not yet. _Sam_ , Castiel thinks, helpless. Sam, asking Castiel if he's alright, always asking. Mary's voice is very even when she speaks. "You're not okay, are you?"

"I want to help them," Castiel says. "I want to give them something that— something—" Castiel flounders to a stop, carefully not squeezing Dean.

Something that costs nothing, something that gives without taking. He thinks of Dean raking leaves, of the life Castiel tried to preserve for him; thinks of Sam broken behind his wall. Something that does not compromise Castiel in their eyes. He meant to give them something, and instead he is here, taking.

Mary watches whatever is playing out on Castiel's face; it doesn't matter what it shows, he's useless to stop it anyway. "They're... they're in trouble, aren't they? Enough trouble that they need an angel's help."

Castiel says nothing, only bows lower over this young Dean, this Dean untroubled by Castiel's mistakes. Mary watches him. The seconds pass, thick with Mary's unspoken calculations.

"They're in the life," she says at last. "They're hunters. I fought to keep them out of it, but they're in it anyway." It isn't a question, but it pulls a response out of him anyway.

"I'm sorry. The world is—" He stops. "They are good men," he offers instead.

She's not looking at him anymore, but at Dean. She stretches out to touch him again, and he shifts Dean towards her. When she speaks, her words are slow, sorting through her thoughts aloud. "You're going to do something so I forget, this, aren't you?" Her thumb strokes across Dean's knuckles, balled around one of her fingers. "I can't know this much about them."

"Yes," Castiel answers.

Mary blows out her breath. "Figures." She doesn't ask or object further, and this trust in Castiel's fundamental goodness — something he had taken for granted, once — lances into the thick knot of guilt and weariness within him. She steps away again, looks down at Dean in Castiel's arms. "Must be worth it though, right? I think hearts must remember. Or souls do. Even you can't touch that, can you?"

Castiel constructs a smile, or something like one. "No, I can't. If we could change a soul like that, we would have no need for consent to enter vessels." _If I could change souls, there would be no need to heal them after I leave them broken._ The soul remembers. He thinks of Sam's tattered soul, resting uneasy and so newly rejoined with him.

Her eyes give him a quick clinical sweep. "You're wearing a vessel now, right? You mentioned that in the alley." At his nod, her lips turn up. "He had kids, didn't he?"

Castiel feels his face express surprise. "How did you know?"

"The way you hold him," Mary murmurs, nodding at Dean.

Castiel closes his eyes. A memory of Jimmy's seeps to the surface, worn away to little more than an impression of warmth and wonder. At the time, Jimmy thought he would remember this moment forever with perfect clarity, these first minutes of holding his daughter. He hadn't, in the end. The feel of Claire's soft hair, her brand new smell, the small mewls and huffs of her restlessness: all these, pressed carefully through Jimmy's senses, all these concerted firings of his synapses would wear their grooves into his mind, and then fade, and fade, and fade. But what remained, oh. Oh. Love, terror, joy, the sensation of Jimmy's life bending into a new curvature around this small creature, echoed in the protective curl of his gruff hands under Claire's tiny body; echoed now in the way Castiel holds Dean.

Love. The soul remembers.

"Her name was Claire," Castiel says, quiet, eyes still closed. "I inhabited her too, briefly."

Mary tenses. "A kid?"

"Yes." He opens his eyes then. "Before... before. Jimmy begged me to return to him instead. It is the sort of thing your sons will fight against."   _And me_ , he thinks. _I will try, too_. Mary's long look tells him she hears this unspoken addition, reads enough in the space of his pause. Even this small loss of her regard sits thick and heavy on him.

He passes Dean back to her and feels empty.

She accepts her child back, holds him close. "They'd better."

 _You'd better_.

"I've hurt you," he blurts.

Her eyes meet his. "Yeah. Well— yeah. I wanted them out of the life. I wanted _us_ out and—" She blow out a breath. "I'm not about to shoot the messenger here. It's not your fault."

 _Enough other things are_. He wants to give her something, anything. "Dean and his brother will be the best men I know. Their souls will be vessels fit to house the highest of angels."

"But that's not why you love them, is it?" It's not a question, and he is so, so tired.

Weeping is a human response. The breath his body takes — unnecessary, heedless — shakes hard regardless. Dean hears it. He stirs, coughs in discontent.

This, Castiel cannot take. He searches through the things Dean has shared with him, and his lips open again, the words emerging uneven and riding the uncertain skeleton of a melody. " _When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me... Speaking words of wisdom..._ "

" _Let it be_ ," Mary finishes, clear and quiet in the waning light. She stands before him, holding Dean, watching him.

"And in my hour of darkness," Castiel whispers, barely heard under her smoother song, "she is standing right in front of me..."

Mary interrupts her own singing with a snort. Castiel falters to a halt behind her. "Okay, one of them must have gotten John's sense of humour, because as sweet as that is, that is way too corny and literal."

Castiel smiles, helpless. "I'm sorry. My people skills—"

"Oh, I can guess where you get them, don't worry. You're doing alright."

"I'm sorry," he repeats, more seriously. "I meant to come here so I would have something to give, not to take."

Mary shushes him. "Either my boys grow up a lot worse than you're telling me they do, or you haven't been paying attention at all."

"Sam, at least, would be disappointed in me, I think." Dean has yet to learn to take for himself.

Mary is quiet for a moment. And then, "Oh, Dean," she sighs, fond and exasperated, rocking baby Dean a little in mild, preemptive rebuke.

"Yes," Castiel agrees. Oh, Dean.

She eyes him for a silent moment, and when Dean fusses again at being ignored, she hums something sweet and unstructured before it smoothes into a tune, and words. _"And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain..."_ she sings, picking up their first song again for a moment, rocking Dean again. _"Don't carry the world upon your shoulders_..." Her head is tipped down towards Dean, but she's looking up at Castiel through her lashes, one brow raised in something like challenge.

Castiel turns away, and Mary's singing softens back into wordless humming, her point made. When Castiel looks back, Dean is smiling up at her.

"Mary, can we— can you show me how you are with Dean? A routine evening." Like a normal afternoon, raking leaves. The words are so clumsy. He hopes she understands.

Mary smiles, nods. She puts on records she listens to with Dean, dances around the floor with her son. When they watch a show on the television, she comments on it constantly for Dean's benefit, and Castiel can tell that what she says is funny, teasing — loving — even if he doesn't understand most of the references. She puts Dean in his chair and cooks while Castiel sits nearby and watches as she slips Dean bits of the ingredients, laughs at his curious gurgles.

Castiel slips into the background, out of her sight, out of her memory, and memorizes in her stead the ways she loves her son. And he will show Dean, his Dean, that he is loved.

A car makes some sudden loud noise outside, startling Dean out of a short sated nap. He lets out a small noise of discontent and Mary starts singing to him again. Castiel mouths along under his breath, soundless and forgotten.

_And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me..._

He is hunted in heaven and on earth. He is desperate, and tired, cornered and compromised. But Mary loves John. Mary will love Sam — briefly, sharply, and eternally. And Mary loves Dean, now and always.

Castiel rises, unheard and unseen, and stands opposite Mary, over this Dean that is safe and loved.

"For though they may be parted.." Mary sings, strokes her son's hair. "There is still a chance that they will see... there will be an answer..."

 _Let it be_ , they sing softly, together even if only Castiel knows it, and Dean sleeps between them.

——-

"I brought gifts," Cas announces right in Sam's ear, interrupting a debate over whether it was time to get dinner.

" _Oh God,_ " Sam squawks.

Dean makes a sound like some kind of startled-hostile grunt that Sam will have to tease him about later once he's done having his own heart attack. Then Dean's whipping around to the space so suddenly occupied by Cas and getting a lot closer than is strictly necessary for Cas to hear his growl of, "The hell did I tell you about beaming aboard close enough to—"

"Dean, chill, it's okay." Sam sucks in a breath. "I'm just tired." He levels a stare at Dean. _Unless you really wanna talk about another reason I could be jumpy right now_. Dean looks away, and Sam transfers his gaze to Cas. "It's fine, Cas," he reiterates.

"I apologize, time travel makes it difficult to—"

"Really, Cas, it's— wait, back up—"

"Time travel?" Dean cuts in.

Cas shuffles his feet in an unusual display of discomfort, like for once he realizes he's done something weird and over the top. Which, considering his next words, fair enough. "I went to 1979. To get something for you."

Dean chokes on air. "You went to— Dude, the mall's four exits over. Spencer's not fancy enough for you?"

Cas looks so exhausted, and Sam turns to eyeball his brother. "Jesus, Dean, did Cas steal your lunch money or is there a reason you're being more of a dick than usual?" Dean's jaw ticks, and Sam can guess where he's caught, between the literal hell Sam's been through and this sudden display of both power and affection from Cas. Sam's right there with him, strung out and wrung out, but it's no excuse to be a jerk to Cas when the guy went all the way to 1979 to get them something.

"What's the occasion, anyway? Belated Valentine for Sammy?" Cas gives him a blank look. Dean rolls his eyes. "Well, Mc _Fly_ , you gonna share with the class?" Dean presses. "Got a sports almanac tucked behind your feathers or what?" Dean clearly swallowed something harsher to get all that out instead but—

"Dean, that wouldn't even work, and it was Biff—"

"My wings don't exist in the same plane as anything I choose to—"

"Jesus fuck," Dean barks and ostentatiously pretends to clean out an ear. "I'm getting nerd in surround sound now. I get it, Dean is a big dumb caveman with no manners."

"Dean," Cas says.

Dean turn to him as if compelled.

Sam turns away from the look they share. Doesn't stop him from silently rooting for Cas, though, adding his own mental nudge for Dean to stop talking about himself like that. Dean's not an idiot— well, not _that_ kind of idiot. Sam can't really clear him of all charges there, not when Dean's standing there staring at Cas with clear feet between them, not making a move. He gives them a few more seconds in case maybe finally this time one of them will snap, before giving up and clearing his throat.

"Well, hey, presents! Thanks, Cas. What are they?"

Cas looks to Sam. Beyond him, Dean's suddenly twisting away, shuffling towards the beaten-up motel dresser, scratching at the back of his head and generally projecting uncomfortable awareness of Interrupted Moment in every dialect of body language he knows. Sam suppresses a head shake and focuses on Cas.

"I gathered some memories," Cas declares. Sam feels his eyebrows rise. "For you," Cas tacks on, as if this is an important point they might have missed so far.

"Uh," Sam tries.

" _Memories_?" Dean picks up, for once the more articulate.

Cas glances back at him, and then the glance sticks, big surprise. "I visited your parents."

"Our parents?" comes out of both of them at once. Sam cuts a look at Dean, trailing the sudden rush up his spine at being in sync with Dean, again, for once, finally. And then it shatters as Dean continues with, "Didn't that go, you know, just a bit tits-up last time?"

Cas frowns at him. "I didn't do anything to them. They are safe, and won't remember. I just wanted— I was trying—" Sam steps closer to Cas without thinking, concerned — Cas talks weird all the time, sure, but once he's got a thing to say he almost always barrels right along with it, not tripping over himself like this. "I hope these will make you happy," Cas concludes, and _Jesus_.

"Of course," Sam says. He puts a hand on Cas's shoulder. "That's really, um, thoughtful. Thanks, Cas." Sam glares at his brother over Cas's head. Something complicated that was playing over Dean's face flees, and Dean silently throws up his hands with a put-upon eyeroll that Cas doesn't see, because Cas is staring up at Sam and looking almost desperate.

"Sam," Cas says. He turns to put a hand on Sam's shoulder, too, and then reaches up to touch his temple. Sam's hand comes up behind Cas to arrest Dean's two big strides towards them. "This one is for you," Cas says before Sam is swallowed in a warm afternoon in a diner in Lawrence where a Mary that is young and painfully lovely flirts and laughs with a John who grins and gives and loves so freely it hurts.

And Sam needed this. God, he needed this — something this _clean_ , something that reminds him that he doesn't come from something painful and ugly but from something beautiful and pure; needed something that knits him together and leaves him floating. Something of _family_ that isn't tainted.

Sam shakes in a breath as Cas's fingers leave his forehead. His throat feels thick.

"Thank you, Cas. God. Thank you."

Cas clasps his shoulder. "Thank you, Sam."

Dean, of course, ruins it. "Christ, now I'm not sure I want mine. Should I put my nuts in cold storage first just in case?"

Sam chokes on a suspiciously wet snort. "Jesus, Dean, don't be such an asshole." He clears his clogged throat. "Is that, uh— did you get that for Dean too?"

"No, Dean's is—" Cas's eyes flit towards where Dean has a skeptical eyebrow raised. "Here," Cas murmurs, and swipes a hand across Sam's forehead, leaving behind a fleeting impression of Mary and a long slow afternoon full of quiet songs.

"Yeah," Sam breathes. "Yeah, okay, that'll— Yes." His eyes had closed when Cas touched him. He opens them, looks Cas in the eye. "Cas, yes," he says, quiet and solid.

"You two need me to give you a minute?"

Sam rolls his eyes. He's had about enough of Dean's projecting and his territorial displays for the day, and given what Cas wants to show him— "You know, Dean, maybe you were right and it's time to eat. I always told you you get cranky when you're hungry. No," Sam interrupts whatever Dean was about to come out with, pointing at him with a hand newly occupied with keys and wallet. "It's your turn so let Cas give you his present. I'll even get you a burger."

And maybe Sam just wants a minute to sit in a diner and remember another one, one he's never been to but rests now in his heart. Time to file that shard into something softer, that can fit inside him without tearing him up. And maybe give Dean the same courtesy even if Dean doesn't know yet that he'll need it, because Sam is an excellent brother.

Dean's eyes are a bit too wide as Sam abandons him heartlessly to Cas's mercies. But then Cas is crowding into Dean's space, and Sam hides a grin as Cas raises his hands to Dean's shoulders, ignores their skittish flinch to raise them further to either side of Dean's head. Touches his forehead to Dean's. If Dean wants to pretend that Sam was just too tall for that particular maneuver, it's none of Sam's business, and neither is the " _Cas_ " that punches out of Dean a moment later, croaked and breathless under the weight of what Cas shows him.

Sam shuts the door very quietly.

  
    


  
    


**Author's Note:**

> [The Beatles - Hey Jude](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDdI7GhZSQA)
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> [The Beatles - Let It Be](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HboLQccEv0)


End file.
